Wolfpack vs Uboat -- Differences ? ? Pro's/Cons

[AP514]

OK

I have to ask.. What are the differences between the 2 ?

A list would be nice... Any one want to give it a shot ?

[Sub187]

They are 2 completely different games

Wolfpack is a multiplayer-only sim where a group of players work together to hunt for enemy vessels. "Co-op Silent Hunter" is the best description for it.

UBOAT is a crew management game wrapped in a submarine theme. "The Sims submerged" would be the best description for it.

[Justaguyinnc]

Yep 2 completely different games.. BUY BOTH



Wolfpack - Instant action Mission base.. very immersive solo or as designed, Multiplayer Crewed.. all manual..


UBOAT - think Silent Hunter series with a RPG twist .. you really have to keep up with the crew, including shooting the cook now and then.. although most solutions can be AI.. you can manual attack..kinda too.. When you first start it looks a lot like the map and time compression everyone is use to from the Silent Hunter Series.. The Planes are already there with a full UBOAT interior.. radios stations and transmissions from HQ etc.. a very good looking FULL Blown game.. mission can be anything from ship sinking to spy drop off to find lost ships and help other subs damaged to diving for wreckage goodies.. but lots of bugs to start with in their Early Access (more features = more bugs).. I am sure that will change.. NO Multiplayer..


I have to say by content UBOAT has the top spot.. but for an immersive feel on a 1-2 hr hunt.. Wolfpack wins there.

yep...need both...:)

[gutted]

....to hunt for enemy vessels.

I wish.

The game is currently just a convoy attack simulator, of which you are already near enough to find them. There is no "hunting" for targets involved.

[Thecoroner]

Both games are great but not finished yet. Completly different styles. Unfortunatly Uboat is almost unplayable atm. But really promising. I'd say the best mod ever would be a way to switch to Wolfpack when you are close enough to hear a contact in Uboat then back to your Uboat campaign with updated stat^^ It will depends on the games but if we could get enough info from saved games and edit them maybe. Or a campaign in Wolfpack but doesn't really seem to fit in the game. I don't know. We will see but I hope they will both be finished and polished :-) I love the crew management in Uboat. Having to sleep, repair, recharge, ... is really cool. It adds to realism imo. Uboat is more a campaign solo game while Wolfpack is pure immersion. In wolfpack you are on a mission to attack a convoy. It's really the time when in a campaign you dive to make a sweep and you heard them. It's time to attack on full realism mode in coop (or even lonewolf style)

[Thecoroner]

If wolfpack get a good mission editor, accessible through editable files
+ stats files at the end of the mission.
and
if Uboat makes it possible to edit saved games :

You could pass from one to the other.

That would make that the perfect game Imo.
No places feels like Wolfpack
but full traversal of the Atlantic makes no sense in wolfpack.

By the way : Wolfpack > Uboat (since a wolfpack is many uboat ;-))

[Elphaba]

OK

I have to ask.. What are the differences between the 2 ?

A list would be nice... Any one want to give it a shot ?

It’s patently obvious what the differences are; I suggest you read their store pages and watch a video on YouTube about each and do your own research.

There’s no point asking someone here to spoon feed it all to you because they’re completely different.

One is heavily based on co-op realism, the other is a single player management game.

[Thecoroner]

U-boat is a new game and it's very good.
Wolfpack is a new experience and it's awesome!

[urfisch]

Personally i was very excited about both games. And i was surprised how fast i lost interest in Wolfpack. I followed the development over a year and watched a lot of streams after release. I wish, the spark would have set me on fire. The depth of simulation is very, very nice. But it has too many edges. Its graphics are not comparable to UBOAT and the gameplay becomes extremly fast repetitive.



Overall i recognized a deep lack of communication from the dev-team and updated perspectives for the game. Additionally the gameplay is to narrow focussed for me. I like to walk around the sub, manage things, feel the immersion and hunt ships. UBOAT might get all this very detailed sim-feeling from Wolfpack when the SDK is released, but Wolfpack will never get the broad gameplay from UBOAT. So in my opinion Wolfpack is a really nice done simulator, but will loose the race. Main reason is the missing community communication from the devs and nearly no content updates (so far). I cant see, where the game is going.

[Elphaba]

Personally i was very excited about both games. And i was surprised how fast i lost interest in Wolfpack. I followed the development over a year and watched a lot of streams after release. I wish, the spark would have set me on fire. The depth of simulation is very, very nice. But it has too many edges. Its graphics are not comparable to UBOAT and the gameplay becomes extremly fast repetitive.



Overall i recognized a deep lack of communication from the dev-team and updated perspectives for the game. Additionally the gameplay is to narrow focussed for me. I like to walk around the sub, manage things, feel the immersion and hunt ships. UBOAT might get all this very detailed sim-feeling from Wolfpack when the SDK is released, but Wolfpack will never get the broad gameplay from UBOAT. So in my opinion Wolfpack is a really nice done simulator, but will loose the race. Main reason is the missing community communication from the devs and nearly no content updates (so far). I cant see, where the game is going.


It's EARLY ALPHA... what we have to 'play' (test really) is a bare bones semi-random mission with early interactive stations.

Read the Roadmap to see what's coming. Read the interviews.

I really hate this aspect of Early Access. People have no patience, and they certainly don't respect the development process. There is so much more to come, and what we have may well significantly change.

You've basically paid to test and give bug reports and watch the development process.

If you're not onboard with that, you might as well wait until full release.

But play testing as each new system and mission is added would really help propel the game to be the best it could be, but you need patience and respect of the process.

[Onkel Neal]

I wish.

The game is currently just a convoy attack simulator, of which you are already near enough to find them. There is no "hunting" for targets involved.

Can you give us some ideas on how we can make it a "hunting" sim?

[gutted]

Can you give us some ideas on how we can make it a "hunting" sim?


Co-oping a single uboat (with captain controlled time compression) through a silent hunter style career is the game i really want.

But that's not what wolfpack is, and i'm ok with that. It's just not something that will (or even hasn't so far) kept my attention. It's become rather repetitive already. Cool for an occasional session, but not something we'd do nightly.

[Elphaba]

Can you give us some ideas on how we can make it a "hunting" sim?

It already is a hunting sim; the only thing to possibly change is that the grid were supposed to go to, we never need to get there... we could have to hunt in and around that grid, but that would probably mean about an hour plus, of real time “hunting” before a convoy was detected.

Most people wouldn’t be up for that, but having it as a separate mission as an. option would be great.

The only other hunting I can think of is multiple different contacts at range, and some might be ships we can’t attack, this we have to then turn around and go to find the other contacts and see if we can find some to attack.

That would be very cool, but again increases game time.

I definitely however veto any time compression in the game; it would destroy what the game is.

[Onkel Neal]

Co-oping a single uboat (with captain controlled time compression) through a silent hunter style career is the game i really want.

But that's not what wolfpack is, and i'm ok with that. It's just not something that will (or even hasn't so far) kept my attention. It's become rather repetitive already. Cool for an occasional session, but not something we'd do nightly.

Thanks, gutted, for the feedback. Agreed it can be repetitive, although we have a lot more content to come and a lot of other features that will deepen the gameplay. The current version is about 20% of the total game. We have stuff planned that will address the variety of missions, some of it I cannot discuss at this time. I will say that when the Enigma, HF/DF and kurzsignale parts are finished, you will have more hunting options.

We had a lot of discussions about time compression and warping. Initially I was in favor of it, because my time to play games is pretty limited. We examined the mechanics of a Silent Hunter style career and essentially, it is the same thing over and over:


the player starts the mission
clicks on max time compression
watches a sub icon move across a computer screen map of the world
waits 2~20 minutes for the game to spawn a convoy ("intercept" a convoy)
alerts the player and stops time compression
player now makes the observations necessary for the approach.


Spawn a convoy or to "intercept" a convoy is essentially the same thing. Whether the game has convoys in a database and they are generated when the player's coordinates meet the required criterion for "contact" and convoy generation. Or if the game randomly spawns a convoy at predetermined intervals, the player really has no way of seeing this and the perception is the same: our sub is sailing at 2048x times actual speed and we came across a convoy.

When a player watches a sub at max TC zipping across a map of the North Sea and Atlantic Ocean, it's all imaginary and simply feeds the perception that the sub is "in the world". When a player is "hunting" he is simply watching a screensaver until the game spawns a convoy.

If there are radio messages informing the player of possible contacts or map updates that show intel where convoys might be, that does add a lot to the perception that the player is hunting. But it still boils down to the same thing--max TC until the game stops you and says "hey, you just found a convoy". Player decides to investigate a harbor? Spawned enemies, contact. Player sails across the Atlantic to the Horn of Africa? Spawned enemies, contact. Player sails to the US East Coast? Spawned enemies, contact. That's not bad, I'm not saying that. But it is what the games amount to.

With a co-op game, we simply cannot expect 5 players to spend a lot of time looking (waiting until the game spawns a convoy). We sure don't want 5 people to spend an hour looking for a convoy and never finding it. And we made the decision to avoid time compression because that's too game-y for the atmosphere we wanted for Wolfpack. Real time tactics build a lot of tension, real human emotion, and that makes Wolfpack different from Silent Hunter where a guy can zip around a convoy in 2 minutes and replay the same scenario until he gets the results he wants (that's fun too, but a different fun). In Wolfpack, no computer message alerts you "there's a convoy, get ready!" You and your crew find and examine the convoy with your own eyes.

So the current version of Wolfpack cuts out the hunting aspect that involves a lot of time waiting. Because as any hunter knows, there is a lot more time involved in hunting than in finding.

[John Pancoast]

Correct me if wrong Neal, but while there may not be a "There's a convoy, get ready" message, in reality, Wolfpack just starts (currently) at the next step from such a message and one knows there's a convoy somewhere in the vicinity.
I.e., in SH one gets: A. A convoy reported message then goes to an intercept spot and then B: hunts for and hopefully finds it.
Wolfpack just skips A and goes to B in other words. The B has the same aspects in either game (other than multi or not obviously) ?
Regarding TC, I'm not sure it's any more "gamey" then plopping one's boat in the middle of the ocean with the foreknowledge that there's a convoy already nearby.
But doing the "plopping" is a good time saver idea, which of course, is all tc is too.

[Ragnarokkr]

as mentioned previously by gutted, the gameplay does get repetive, with the current situation being that the subs spawn almost within sight radius to the convoy.


Personally I don't think this is inherently a bad way to do it, and Neil got right on the money.

Waiting is not always fun.
Games are supposed to gratify the player and not bore him enough to leave the hatch open on a hydrophone check.



For now atleast I will be waiting for new content and features, with my eye trained especially for

- new adversaries (like new warships and airplanes to dodge),

- later some variations to Uboat models (like the type II coastal boat and IX),

- maybe some sort of "career mode" (though no ideas how this would be done)
- i like interacting with the enviroment on the boat. If Wolfpack is going to be a firstperson immersive uboat crawler, then the conning tower, bridge etc should have some nice buttons and knobs to push and turn because i like things that do other things.
- mission fail/success screen rework. its pretty anti climactic the last i saw of it.




But a small dev team means no breakneck speed and so i will simmer down for now with these ideas off the top of my head, retreat back to my hole and wait for new updates.


TLDR: Yes its repetetive. New content pls. Good luck devs.:up:

[blackswan40]

My thoughts on Wolfpack Updates ect


1. When the escorts get Hedgehogs that will be a whole new ball game and uboat crews will have to adopt new stratergies like greater reliance on the sonarman as he reports the escort with Hedgehogs closing calling out the distance as he listens intentley judging the distance of the approarching escort.


2. When Aircraft are put in Wolfpack that raises the bar again do you surface on a cloudy winter day trying to close the distance to a Convoy when liberators with radar are in your area and the Aircraft communicate with the Convoy escorts giving them your location


3. Wolfpack a one size fits all Simulation so to speak as regards from what the Devs have said so far AI Bots on the unmanned stations for Single Player nice touch that.
The idea of some sort of Campaign realy excites me i dont know if this will happen.

I have written a SH3 GW3 Campaign for the Steel Sharks Clan in the scripted leyer of the mission editor i would love to write something similar for Wolfpack as well as new Missions making them more challanging having the escorts with different crew class compitant Veteran Elite.
More escort types stretched Flower class river class captain conlony class Usn ewarts bensons buckleys tacomers as the war progresses with better deadlier Depth Charges.
Also Merchants from different nations.


Re Missions the bigest Wolfpack Convoy ive seen so far was 32 merchants 3 escorts
writing a Wolfpack mission 36-40 merchants laid out 4 rows of 9 then 4 merchants at the back with 4 escorts but a escort support group arrives on the scene an hour into mission so will you go for more tonage or do you now evade the toublesome escorts and slip away to fight another day


4 . Human Controled escorts now this sounds very interesting indeed dancing around AI escorts is one thing evading A Human controlled escorts a whole different ball game for sure.


I know its a Big wish list with a capital B

[THE_MASK]

Wolfpack Played 12.5 hrs
I dont like multiplayer so i dont play much of Wolfpack atm . I can see though that it is miles ahead for that virtual out on the sea feeling and comradary when you have real players playing along side . There is a lot of the roadmap to be added .
The devs seem fanatical about having a highly polished problem free game .

Uboat . Played 6.3 hrs
Too convoluted (maybe i just need to play it a bit more) , no hardcore options . Very early beta imo .
The bugs dont worry me because the devs atm are hitting the bugs out of the ball park .

I bought both games .
This is the golden era of pc ww2 sub games atm .

[THE_MASK]

Can you give us some ideas on how we can make it a "hunting" sim?Have a slider on the lobby settings page that gives you approx min to max distance that a convoy would spawn from the sub . The slider would adjust the approx random distance that a convoy would spawn . Have it visible on the join page so players can decide if they have the time to play that particular scenario . It might be too technically difficult to implement at this stage of game development or dumb idea , i dunno . Maybe just have 3 different spawn distances to choose from .
I know its a lot of work but if there was a mission editor and a steam workshop it would solve the problem .

[Ragnarokkr]

After getting some shuteye and coming back to see whats up in the thread:
AI can only be so smart and is always slaved to its directives, ergo. it cannot really act unpredictably, like a human opponent would.
I'm also reminded to quote "It is hard to make a AI that makes mistakes."


I think it would be a improvement to the game to aim the game towards a PvP element such as a Wolfpack vs. Escorts, with all but the merchants themselves being directly human controlled.
Don't get me wrong though, I think the game is fine as it stands. I only think it benefits from having both sides controlled by humans to add in the unpredictability the game needs.
Regarding the destroyers/corvettes etc; it could be done as with the uboats. One or two areas for the players, a captain, helmsman, sonarman. A captain for commands and weapons control, helmsman for engine and rudder control, sonarman for hydrophones and ASDIC.

While I say weapons control, I don't mean direct control though. I think the gun mounts and depth charges should be AI controlled but with indirect fire commands/directives given by the captain. (as in, captain directs fire by binoculars but has no direct control on aiming)

Additionally the escorts could give orders to the merchants such as evasive manouver directions, speed changes, assume column/line/box formation etc.
Though this then should be somehow balanced that the convoy cannot outright outrun the sub players to win the scenario, though this can be rebalanced after playtesting and feedback. (if the idea ever makes the cut)

This could also be expanded to the aircraft being controllable, armed with depth charges and machineguns. Also with radios for the pilot to communicate with, searchlights, flares to mark sub positions etc.

I'm not too familiar with how transparent the atlantic ocean water is, as in, could you see a sub's silhouette that is in periscope depth from say 30-150m height, or how visible the periscope would be.
But while the aircraft would not neccesarily be a remarkable threat factor (speaking in game terms) to balance out the planes not being too OP, they would add in significant pressure on the subs crew, knowing that there are planes around, and staying in periscope depth is a risk in itself.
I also remember somewhere hearing accounts that the noise from the aircraft could be heard vibrating in the sub hull, though this could be with the cold war turboprop bears...


"Aircraft in the early days of Air ASW primarily relied upon visual lookouts to detect submarines. These patrolling aircraft consisted mainly of Consolidated PBY-5 Catalina seaplanes, smaller aircraft, and various airships (or blimps). Their weapon systems were limited to guns, depth bombs, and rockets."
Technically if the devs were to add a warship "convoy" (read: carrier/battleship with escort) then it could be also sufficiently logical to have fighters/dive bombers instead of Catalinas.


I see land with a harbor. A convoy with heavy escort is barely out of the bay when the first torpedo sinks the vanguard corvette, the small airstrip near the harbor scrambles three fighter-bombers and convoy increases to flank with the escorts frantically banging the seafloor with their ASDICs while reinforcements are inbound from the port.

The wolfpack lurks about getting into position and fires off salvoes while being chased by briton warships and american planes.


EDIT; Thoughts?

[Onkel Neal]

Correct me if wrong Neal, but while there may not be a "There's a convoy, get ready" message, in reality, Wolfpack just starts (currently) at the next step from such a message and one knows there's a convoy somewhere in the vicinity.

You are correct, essentially that is what happens. When Wolfpack starts, you know there is a contact out there somewhere.

Same with Silent Hunter: when the TC abruptly drops from 2018x to 1x, you know there is a contact.



I.e., in SH one gets: A. A convoy reported message then goes to an intercept spot and then
B: hunts for and hopefully finds it.


What do you do if you do not find it?

[John Pancoast]

You are correct, essentially that is what happens. When Wolfpack starts, you know there is a contact out there somewhere.

Same with Silent Hunter: when the TC abruptly drops from 2018x to 1x, you know there is a contact.




What do you do if you do not find it?

Myself, the watch can't find it visually or the sonar man can't find it via the hydrophones (I don't listen to them myself, that's his job) after the calculated time frame I should have, I return to standard patrolling whether that's continuing onto an assigned area, etc.

Re SH tc, I only respond to convoy reports and they don't stop tc. Only time it would drop is if I'm at an intercept area via a report, but I'm rarely above 1x there anyway.
Rarely use 2048 (sometimes near base during a return) and so never had a 2048 to 1 contact drop; at that speed wouldn't one be right on top of them (in a bad way) anyway ?
I need to get a new pc.

[Thecoroner]

Can you give us some ideas on how we can make it a "hunting" sim?

Here's my "brainstorming" ideas for a mission based campaign in wolfpack.


An interactive map like that one :

https://www.abmc.gov/sites/default/files/interactive/interactive_files/BOTA_Web/

where you could click on a large number of available historical site to get a mission. It wouldn't be possible to do all the mission for a time period. you would have to chose your path through the war. You could chose the length of the campaign based on the number of missions to pass to get to the next time period and technology should evolved timebased. With recorded stat and journal + maybe historical info. In my opinion that would be a very good mission based campaign without needing to compress time.

you could add hunting missions where maybe you will have to give up coz you don't find any ship at all.



Idea 2 (that keeps the online crew spirit of the game):

Same kind of map but online and shared through players. That would required different crew to pass missions and when enough missions are crossed on the global map the time based would advance with a new map and missions for everyone (every week, month,... I don't know). Continue like that to the end of war (or end it with black may on Iron Men servers :-D)

Thanks for the game by the way, it's great. Good luck and keep up the good work.

[Tinfish]

I think it would be a improvement to the game to aim the game towards a PvP element such as a Wolfpack vs. Escorts, with all but the merchants themselves being directly human controlled.
Don't get me wrong though, I think the game is fine as it stands. I only think it benefits from having both sides controlled by humans to add in the unpredictability the game needs.
Regarding the destroyers/corvettes etc; it could be done as with the uboats. One or two areas for the players, a captain, helmsman, sonarman. A captain for commands and weapons control, helmsman for engine and rudder control, sonarman for hydrophones and ASDIC.



What you're essentially talking about is what SH2 and Destroyer Command was, with the difference being that multiple people play on one ship. When that game worked, it was so much fun. Unfortunately it's probably extremely dev and resource hungry to reproduce something like that.

[Elphaba]

I think it would be a improvement to the game to aim the game towards a PvP element such as a Wolfpack vs. Escorts, with all but the merchants themselves being directly human controlled.
Don't get me wrong though, I think the game is fine as it stands. I only think it benefits from having both sides controlled by humans to add in the unpredictability the game needs.

EDIT; Thoughts?

I couldn’t disagree more.

You’d have dickish human players constantly changing convoy course, speed and scattering such that you’d never get a working solution.

That’s not just unpredictability, that’s trolling.

Look at almost any multiplayer game where the gameplay isn’t sensibly constrained... you have large groups of stupid young men who’s only pleasure is screwing over other gamers (sea of thieves, rainbow siege etc).

Maybe one human controlled destroyer who can’t screw with the convoy would be Ok, but then you factor in that they’d constantly be pinging, and changing course and actively searching because as a human they’d be forewarned there’s a sub and again you’ve ruined the main gameplay loop.

MP almost always ruins games because people are selfish and ignorant, especially in a competitive arena. Co-op is better, but can still cause issues.

I don’t see a way of having MP pvp without the surface players ****ing up the game for the sub players.

[Onkel Neal]

Here's my "brainstorming" ideas for a mission based campaign in wolfpack.


An interactive map like that one :

https://www.abmc.gov/sites/default/files/interactive/interactive_files/BOTA_Web/

where you could click on a large number of available historical site to get a mission. It wouldn't be possible to do all the mission for a time period. you would have to chose your path through the war. You could chose the length of the campaign based on the number of missions to pass to get to the next time period and technology should evolved timebased. With recorded stat and journal + maybe historical info. In my opinion that would be a very good mission based campaign without needing to compress time.

you could add hunting missions where maybe you will have to give up coz you don't find any ship at all.



Idea 2 (that keeps the online crew spirit of the game):

Same kind of map but online and shared through players. That would required different crew to pass missions and when enough missions are crossed on the global map the time based would advance with a new map and missions for everyone (every week, month,... I don't know). Continue like that to the end of war (or end it with black may on Iron Men servers :-D)

Thanks for the game by the way, it's great. Good luck and keep up the good work.

Wow. that's awesome, I'm going to have to spend a few hours there.:Kaleun_Applaud:

[Onkel Neal]

What you're essentially talking about is what SH2 and Destroyer Command was, with the difference being that multiple people play on one ship. When that game worked, it was so much fun. Unfortunately it's probably extremely dev and resource hungry to reproduce something like that.

I would like to see that as the end result of Wolfpack, but even discussing it is some time away. We have to finish Wolfpack first.

SH2 and DC was a huge community success and I think Wolfpack is the perfect platform for a reboot. The Allied side would have a few human controlled escorts. One of the escort players would be the Convoy Commander and he could shift the convoy's course once a ship was attacked. Naturally, there would have to be limits to allow for balanced gameplay for U-boats and Escorts. A convoy in real life can scatter and spend 24 hours reassembling but in a 2 hour real time game I would think a single course change would be enough to make it a challenge without making it impossible for the U-boats.

[blackswan40]

Originally Posted by Onkel Neal http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/smartdark/viewpost.gif (http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?p=2607147#post2607147)
Can you give us some ideas on how we can make it a "hunting" sim?
My Thoughts on Human Controlled Escorts V Human Controlled Uboats
The merchant ships must be controlled by the Simmulations AI following the course pree set with the merchant thats the convoy commondores
ship and all other merchants are attached to him on same heading course the job of the escorts is to stop the Uboats sinking Merchants not necessarsilarly to destroy/sink Uboats ie to protect the convoy at all costs.
Keeping the Uboats from penetrating the escort screen or keeping the Uboats head down so to speak like stopping rustlers getting your cattle.
By dropping DC'S near to the UBoat to put him off is stroke if hes about to launch his eels.
also escorts could hunt in pairs similar to escorts in GWX3 one approaches you at slow speed pining you while another does an atttack run on you then they change over.
forcing the Uboat player to turn this way and that way at speed all the time runing is batteries down.
The human escort players would have to have some sort of points system a safe convoy icon on the results screen for protecting a convoy and not loosing a single merchant in the mission even if they did not destroy any Uboats.

The Uboat players probing the Convoy defences tring to slip through a gap in the escort screen once inside the Convoy then the Uboats can target the bigest ships but you could have AI twarlers inside the convoy to spice it up
as well as the five human controlled escorts that can also weave in and out of the convoy lanes.
Also what about Q-ships small merchants with sound gear on pinging the Uboats sending that data to the escorts by in game radio messages.


So in a nutshell theres the thrill of the Hunt for both sides

[nocken]

wolfpack is a realtime. strategic sim. human player based. if you introduce pvsp. well. it will turn into a call of duty/battlefield 5. or even worse sub vs sub. let the game grow. quiet simple if you dont like it, DONT play it. from like acorns,come major oaks.

[gutted]

I would just like to point out that despite the tone of my earlier post, that i really like wolfpack. My post was basically just me dreaming about the game me and my coop bud i always wanted.

[Tinfish]

I would like to see that as the end result of Wolfpack, but even discussing it is some time away. We have to finish Wolfpack first.

SH2 and DC was a huge community success and I think Wolfpack is the perfect platform for a reboot. The Allied side would have a few human controlled escorts. One of the escort players would be the Convoy Commander and he could shift the convoy's course once a ship was attacked. Naturally, there would have to be limits to allow for balanced gameplay for U-boats and Escorts. A convoy in real life can scatter and spend 24 hours reassembling but in a 2 hour real time game I would think a single course change would be enough to make it a challenge without making it impossible for the U-boats.

Stretching my memory a bit far to a time that seems to have vanished, the implementation of interop play (I'm sure they didn't call it coop) was a community project after Ubisoft abandoned it and essentially handed over the code?
I honestly can't remember now, maybe I'm getting it mixed up? I should remember as I was one of the testers.
Once it was up and running though, there was a great response from the community and people keen to play both roles.

I do agree that this seems like the perfect platform to build a modern version.

[Pisces]

For reference: SH2/Destroyer Command Interop(eration) patch: Projekt Messerwetzer: http://www.subsim.com/ssr/p_messerwetzer.htm

Never played myself to be honest.

[blackswan40]

I remeber those Glory days the Subsim Community had to raise $10,000 for the Programmer to write the new software Projekt Messerwetzer

[nocken]

wasnt a dig at you gutted at all. yes your right. lets see how it progress. excellent solvent solution app. been using it. spot on, mate. alls good. mate.

[stoppro]

I am back wirh wolfpack for now,I was just over at uboat It is way to nitpicky for me right now. i don't want to dress the crew! I couldn't belive that option. such a thing as too much

[FPSchazly]

Maybe one human controlled destroyer who can’t screw with the convoy would be Ok, but then you factor in that they’d constantly be pinging, and changing course and actively searching because as a human they’d be forewarned there’s a sub and again you’ve ruined the main gameplay loop.


I generally agree with your sentiments regarding multiplayer, however, I would caveat it with the fact that that's true of multiplayer with random people. Multiplayer composed completely of a tight community/friends does not really suffer from the trolling/dumbass behavior. I feel you can also mitigate that kind of behavior largely with smart, team-oriented goals.


I've put a lot of thought into the "randomness" problem you've outlined here. We have the same issue in Dangerous Waters. Simply because we're all humans playing a multiplayer match, we 100% know enemy is out there and within reasonable range. That ruins all the mystery of true naval combat. A way to remedy this could be to have two or more convoys in a multiplayer match (or the number of convoys equals the number of U-boats plus some other number. So if you have two U-boats, you have at least three convoys.) Doing it this way, the human-controlled escorts cannot be certain there is a U-boat attacking their convoy. However, then you have the issue that some human escorts may not have anything to do. You could remedy that by having a time limit or some goal-line limit, i.e., escort the convoy safely to this point and you win.

[Elphaba]

I generally agree with your sentiments regarding multiplayer, however, I would caveat it with the fact that that's true of multiplayer with random people. Multiplayer composed completely of a tight community/friends does not really suffer from the trolling/dumbass behavior. I feel you can also mitigate that kind of behavior largely with smart, team-oriented goals.

That was my point about tightly controlled and well designed gameplay loops, but that’s hard and needs to be one of the first thing worked out before the rest of the game is built around it. Very, very hard to go back and shoe-horn in well.


I've put a lot of thought into the "randomness" problem you've outlined here. We have the same issue in Dangerous Waters. Simply because we're all humans playing a multiplayer match, we 100% know enemy is out there and within reasonable range. That ruins all the mystery of true naval combat. A way to remedy this could be to have two or more convoys in a multiplayer match (or the number of convoys equals the number of U-boats plus some other number. So if you have two U-boats, you have at least three convoys.) Doing it this way, the human-controlled escorts cannot be certain there is a U-boat attacking their convoy. However, then you have the issue that some human escorts may not have anything to do. You could remedy that by having a time limit or some goal-line limit, i.e., escort the convoy safely to this point and you win.

Interesting solution. I like it, but considering the distances involved and real-time nature of a game like Wolfpack, more often than not you’d end up with a very boring (for some) experience whereby the destroyer players wouldn’t have their convoy attacked, and the sub players wouldn’t be playing against smarter non-ai destroyers.

The only way around that is to remove the tension and be explicit that you know you’re convoy is going to be attacked and roughly when.

I think, where most game designers fail, is that they spend too much time on pretty graphics and nowhere near enough time on making a smart AI/NPC enemy. I know from personal experience how hard that can be, but it doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be just as important as good graphics, and far more important than god-rays, bloom, lens flares and bow wave dynamics.

There’s no easy and complete answers. Some - like me - who could do a 4 hour mission, would love the chance to picking which convoy to target - or even as I suggested, having to intercept a sound contact only to find it’s not a valid target and have to find another, but in Wolfpack in real-time that’s a long long mission. With no saves (for some) that becomes a huge obstacle or a game killer.

I think when the real missions and campaign comes in then more variety especially carefully curated missions will help, but I still can’t see a good PVP gameloop that doesn’t destroy part of what makes Wolfpack so good and unique (the tension and slow build).

I accept your points about its who you play with, and for someone like you with exposure and a community of like minded people, it wouldn’t be hard to find some good players, but we’re not all as lucky as that and sometimes randoms are all we can get.

I know my fun with this game is proportional to how good of a Crew I have and how well we all behave, but that’s not easy to find.

After reading many ‘comments’ about Wolfpack and Uboat, it always seems to keep coming back to the fact that some people just want SH3 with co-op and PVP, modern graphics and nazi flags, and nothing will ever be accepted for what they can offer, unless they offer that.

Considering the long drought we’ve had for sub games and then we’ve had three in less than two years I’d say we’re doing pretty well.

Although I wouldn’t mind dangerous waters 2 ;) lol I love me some Seawolf!

[FPSchazly]

I accept your points about its who you play with, and for someone like you with exposure and a community of like minded people, it wouldn’t be hard to find some good players, but we’re not all as lucky as that and sometimes randoms are all we can get.

Considering the long drought we’ve had for sub games and then we’ve had three in less than two years I’d say we’re doing pretty well.

Although I wouldn’t mind dangerous waters 2 ;) lol I love me some Seawolf!


Fair point about who we play with.

The current mood is bright for sub sims! I too wouldn't mind a Dangerous Waters 2 :)

[Daelin[SHOT]]

Since this thread has somewhat derailed into suggestions and ideas for Wolfpack, I hope this is the rigth place to post some more. If there is finally a dedicated thread about suggestions and ideas, please point me there and I will either copy my post or delete it here and post it there, thanks.


Anyways, here goes:

There was the question how to improve the current feel of the game, or how to make it more interesting. And there was especially some comparison with Silent Hunter and U-Boat.


Most people just pointed out that SH compresses time until you meet the convoy. Kind of right, but you still have to leave the harbour!

Why is that of any importance? Because to me (and I guess to some others too) it gives you more of a connection to your boat and crew.
You just left the harbour, cheered on by your fellow sailors and people along the quayside. In SH there even was a band playing! That gave a great sense of starting into an adventure (at least to me).


Now, I do not say the Devs should go straight away for an option to "sail out of a harbour" before you get to the actual convoy-mission. But in the long run, that would make a great addition.

Compared with U-Boat and SH, I am also missing the option to customise the boat. Having some progress after a successful "Feindfahrt" would really add to feeling like it is "my/our" boat. And not just some random "pop it up" convoy-attack. It could also mean, that if you actually get sunk, you lose the progress (or most of it, not all ;-) ). That would give an incentive to sometimes run away instead of hunting till the escorts kill you. Currently my crew and I just disconnect after we sunk some stuff. Running away after the escorts missed you one or two times just takes up time for no reward what so ever.


Another nice option would be if in the lobby menu you could have people place a call for other crews to join them. Yes, I understand you can do that with discord already, but having something/some indicator in the lobby like "looking for additional sub-crew" or something like that would help. at least as long as the attack hasn't started yet. Maybe with some timer or something. At least in my opinion. Or at least the option to name your lobby (like "german sub-crew, looking for additional subs, TS-adress xyz.de")


Additionally some statistcs would be great. Nothing too fancy at the start, just something along the lines of:
Number of "Feindfahrten" as:
- Captain
- Navigator
- Dive Officer
- Radioman
- Helmsman

Times sunk

BRT sunk

So you can somewhat get an idea of how experienced somebody is.


Also it would be great to have a leaderboard. But not simply "most BRT sunk" but more a combination of must successful hunts (maybe also with other subs) and a community leaderboard with stuff like "most helpful player/crew".




TLDR:

Ideas/suggestions:

Short term:
Get some statistics for players (no. of sorties, times sunk, BRT sunk, etc.)
Get an option to call other sub-crews into your lobby (and/or edit lobby name)


Mid-term:
Option to customise the boat (e.g. turret decoration, posters inside, maybe even torpedo equipment, sonar-euipment, like in SH/U-Boat)
Leadershipboard (not only BRT sunk, but also community stuff like "most helpful player/crew")


Long term:
Have the option to leave the harbour prior to the atcual mission (like in SH/U-Boat) with customisation of the boatd and cheering people and a band. And also the option to return to the harbour. Probably best with a tick-box to select if you want that prior to the mission or not.



Just my 2 cents.
The game is already really great as it is, even if you just keep attacking convoys. just some more incentive to actually survive would be good!

[Aktungbby]

'Daelin[SHOT]! Great two cents worth!:Kaleun_Salute:

[Onkel Neal]

Great first post and solid ideas, thanks!

[fastfed]

Co-oping a single uboat (with captain controlled time compression) through a silent hunter style career is the game i really want.

But that's not what wolfpack is, and i'm ok with that. It's just not something that will (or even hasn't so far) kept my attention. It's become rather repetitive already. Cool for an occasional session, but not something we'd do nightly.

very true, this game (wolfpack) what we see now is about all we will ever get. BUT! I do think its a good foundation for another company to take this work and make a silent hunter type of sim, with the wolfpack feel to it.

Time compression/missions/campaign with co-op is the dream. Wolfpack is nothing more than a quick linear action and that's it.

one day the dream will come true, but it might be many more years from now.

Wolfpack IMO is great, but IMO its a 10-20 dollar game at best

[gumbeauregard]

Glad i stopped by.

Bought and downloaded.

I have been hoping for a true WWII submarine simulator and this looks like a great start.

[derstosstrupp]

Glad i stopped by.

Bought and downloaded.

I have been hoping for a true WWII submarine simulator and this looks like a great start.

You sir will not be disappointed!

[AP514]

This Thread has been totally derailed..............


PLZ Close this THREAD..thank you

[Pisces]

No need for exaggeration. The majority of this thread was still about Uboat vs Wolfpack comparison. Sure, it wandered off a bit to become a bit one-sided. But that can be steered back again. And in this forum threads don't tend to get closed until discussions start to go real sour. I think there is some life in it if people are willing to add their 2 cents.

[Aktungbby]

'Daelin[SHOT]! Great two cents worth!:Kaleun_Salute:

Great first post and solid ideas, thanks!

This Thread has been totally derailed..............


PLZ Close this THREAD..thank you

No need for exaggeration. The majority of this thread was still about Uboat vs Wolfpack comparison. Sure, it wandered off a bit to become a bit one-sided. But that can be steered back again. And in this forum threads don't tend to get closed until discussions start to go real sour. I think there is some life in it if people are willing to add their 2 cents.:agree:not totally derailed and it's doing what a good :subsim: thread should with some very well written '2¢'s worth' posts in an unsually eloquent ongoing discussion; well worth continuing....imho:yep:

[mobucks]

I think Wolfpack is VERY GOOD. My only complaint is starting some games you have to do a long end-around. Other than that I find it to be the best U-Boat sim ever made. The co-op makes the game so immersive. I love it.

UBOAT is a good concept but feels like it still needs a lot of work, although a lot of progress has been made in a very short time. I don't mind the micro. I actually enjoy it.


They're both very different games and I appreciate each for different reasons.


In conclusion, I'm really glad each game was made. I'm really glad the WWII sub genre didn't die with Silent Hunter.

[Fearless]

I’ve purchased UBoat thus far and thinking of buying WolfPack. Just don’t know whether my Laptop can handle it.

[JuanLiquid]

If you can run Uboat, you will be able to play Wolfpack without any problem. Uboat is more demanding CPU/GPU game

[Onkel Neal]

I think Wolfpack is VERY GOOD. My only complaint is starting some games you have to do a long end-around. Other than that I find it to be the best U-Boat sim ever made. The co-op makes the game so immersive. I love it.

UBOAT is a good concept but feels like it still needs a lot of work, although a lot of progress has been made in a very short time. I don't mind the micro. I actually enjoy it.


They're both very different games and I appreciate each for different reasons.


In conclusion, I'm really glad each game was made. I'm really glad the WWII sub genre didn't die with Silent Hunter.

Sorry for the late reply, that has been remedied with an option for quick encounter.

[bigbear]

Due to the fact that SH3 and SH5 don't seem to work on widescreen monitors, I am considering getting Wolfpack. But I just need to know if it supports a 3440x1440 screen. Does anyone know if it can?